help

to give or provide what is necessary to accomplish a task or satisfy a need; contribute strength or means to; render assistance to; cooperate effectively with; aid; assist: He planned to help me with my work. Let me help you with those packages.

to save; rescue; succor: Help me, I'm falling!

to make easier or less difficult; contribute to; facilitate: The exercise of restraint is certain to help the achievement of peace.

to be useful or profitable to: Her quick mind helped her career.

to refrain from; avoid (usually preceded by can or cannot): He can't help doing it.

to relieve or break the uniformity of: Small patches of bright color can help an otherwise dull interior.

to relieve (someone) in need, sickness, pain, or distress.

to remedy, stop, or prevent: Nothing will help my headache.

to serve food to at table (usually followed by to): Help her to salad.

Synonyms

1. encourage, befriend; support, second, uphold, back, abet. Help,aid,assist,succor agree in the idea of furnishing another with something needed, especially when the need comes at a particular time. Help implies furnishing anything that furthers one's efforts or relieves one's wants or necessities. Aid and assist, somewhat more formal, imply especially a furthering or seconding of another's efforts. Aid implies a more active helping; assist implies less need and less help. To succor, still more formal and literary, is to give timely help and relief in difficulty or distress: Succor him in his hour of need.3. further, promote, foster. 6. ameliorate. 7. alleviate, cure, heal. 12. support, backing.

Antonyms

3, 11. hinder. 7. afflict. 13. hindrance.

Usage note

21. Help but, in sentences like She's so clever you can't help but admire her, has been condemned by some as the ungrammatical version of cannot help admiring her, but the idiom is common in all kinds of speech and writing and can only be characterized as standard.

Word Origin and History for helpable

help

n.

Old English help (m.), helpe (f.) "assistance, succor;" see help (v.). Most Germanic languages also have the noun form, cf. Old Norse hjalp, Swedish hjälp, Old Frisian helpe, Dutch hulp, Old High German helfa, German Hilfe. Use of help as euphemism for "servant" is American English, 1640s, tied up in notions of class and race.

A domestic servant of American birth, and without negro blood in his or her veins ... is not a servant, but a 'help.' 'Help wanted,' is the common heading of advertisements in the North, when servants are required. [Chas. Mackay, "Life and Liberty in America," 1859].

Though help also meant "assistant, helper, supporter" in Middle English (c.1200).

Recorded as a cry of distress from late 14c. Sense of "serve someone with food at table" (1680s) is translated from French servir "to help, stead, avail," and led to helping "portion of food." Related: Helped (c.1300). The Middle English past participle holpen survives in biblical and U.S. dialectal use.